I am Dr Ruben Sakrabani, a Senior Lecturer in Soil Chemistry at Cranfield University, UK. I have been supervising a PhD student from Malawi who has recently completed his research on 'Optimising compost and irrigation with wastewater to meet crop nutritional requirements' at Cranfield University. I attach an abstract of the thesis. In summary we found that a combination of two sources nutrients from compost (slow release) and wastewater (quicker release) was suitable to meet crop requirements. This has implications to reduce fertiliser cost. All of the PhD project was carried out in the UK but we would like to explore its application to developing countries. I would appreciate response from others who have a common interest in this project idea.

I came across your post from three years ago. I am wondering if you could please also make the whole PhD thesis ('Optimising compost and irrigation with wastewater to meet crop nutritional requirements') available, not just the abstract? We could also put it in the SuSanA library if you agree.

Also, have you continued down this path since then, did you find research partners and continue down the path of this research?

Apologies for the delayed response. I attach a paper that we have published. I am doing some work on this aspect but related to provision of training in Malta and also a research project in Qatar for application in arid conditions. I would be interested to carry this research further with new collaborators. Would you be interested and do you know of any funding sources ?